ObamaCare violates the Constitution down to its “very DNA,” said Sen. Orrin Hatch in a speech on the Senate floor on February 9. “At its core, the law and its expansion of government are a threat to personal liberty…As the state controls more and more of our lives to further a political agenda, our freedom is put in greater and greater jeopardy.”

The controversy over ObamaCare’s mandate for “free” preventive care is the most recent.

The issue is being disguised as a fight over whether women should be guaranteed access to “free” sterilization procedures and contraceptives, including drugs that cause abortions. But the real question is over whether health plans and employers can be compelled to provide products and services that violate their religious beliefs.

“Religious freedom — which has been called ‘our first liberty’ — is ingrained in the very fabric of our national culture,” Sen. Rand Paul wrote recently. “But HHS and the administration have decided that their goal of state-run health care trumps our first liberty. What the president is attempting to do here is something generally witnessed only in totalitarian and authoritarian regimes.”

Two constitutional questions are before the Court in this term: First, the court will decide whether families can be compelled to spend up to $20,000 of their ownl money to buy a private product (expensive health insurance) every year for the rest of their lives, or pay a fine. The Obama administration argues government does have this power under its interpretation of the Commerce Clause of the Constitution.

Second, the court is being asked to decide whether states can be compelled to expand access to their Medicaid programs, which many states say would bankrupt their treasuries. The constitutional question here is the meaning of states’ protection from federal incursion under the Tenth Amendment. The states are being commandeered by the federal government to implement key aspects of the healthcare law. If they refuse, the federal government will come in and take over.